Colias hyale
| Pale clouded yellow | |
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| Species: | Colias hyale
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| Binomial name | |
| Colias hyale | |
Colias hyale, the pale clouded yellow, is a butterfly of the family Pieridae, that is, the yellows and whites, which is found in most of Europe and large parts of Asia. It is a migrant to the British Isles and Scandinavia. The adult wingspan is 52–62 millimetres (2.0–2.4 in).[1]
Description
The upperside of the male is more or less light lemon-yellow, with the black marginal and submarginal bands more or less complete on both wings; the black middle spot of the forewing large, in centre of hindwing an orange-yellow double spot; base of wings more or less dusted with black. The underside is bright yellow, being somewhat lighter on the forewing, with small marginal and larger submarginal red-brown spots; the middle spot of the forewing black with pale centre, the hindwing bearing a double spot which is mother-of-pearl colour, encircled by a double ring of red-brown; fringes above and beneath, as well as head and antenna red-brown. In the female the ground-colour of the upperside and the proximal area of the underside of the forewing is white, being slightly yellowish.
The egg is bottle-shaped, whitish, with yellowish brown stripes. The larva is bluish green or grass-green, velvety, there being on the back two rows of blackish dots which are traversed by two thin yellow longitudinal lines, above the legs a yellow or reddish longitudinal side-line, head dark green; the autumnal larvae without black dorsal spots.Pupa green, with yellow lateral lines.
Biology
The larva feeds on Vicia cracca, Fabaceae, Vicia, Coronilla, Medicago, Lotus, Cytisus, Trifolium
Habitat
Flower meadows up to 2,000 metres above sea level.
Subspecies
- Colias hyale hyale Europe, Ukraine, S. Russia
- Colias hyale alta Staudinger, 1886 a large form with a broad black marginal band provisionally accepted as a full species that flies only at high altitudes in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan "but it may only be a subspecies of C. hyale".
by Grieshuber & Lamas, 2007 [2]
- Colias hyale altaica Verity, 1911 Altaï
- Colias hyale irkutskana Stauder, 1924
- Colias hyale palidis Fruhstorfer, 1910 East Siberia
- Colias hyale novasinensis Reissinger, 1989 Gansu
References
- ^ Heath J. & Maitland Emmet A. (1989) The Moths and Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 7, Part 1, Harley Books Ltd., Colchester: ISBN 0-946589-25-9
- ^ Josef Grieshuber & Gerardo Lamas (2007). "A synonymic list of the genus Colias Fabricius, 1807 (Lepidoptera: Pieridae)" (PDF). Mitteilungen der Münchner Entomologischen Gesellschaft. 97: 131–171.
- Evans, W.H. (1932) The Identification of Indian Butterflies. (2nd Edn), Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India
- Gaonkar, Harish (1996) Butterflies of the Western Ghats, India (including Sri Lanka) - A Biodiversity Assessment of a threatened mountain system. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society.
- Gay,Thomas; Kehimkar,Isaac & Punetha,J.C.(1992) Common Butterflies of India. WWF-India and Oxford University Press, Mumbai, India.
- Kunte,Krushnamegh (2005) Butterflies of Peninsular India. Universities Press.
- Wynter-Blyth, M.A. (1957) Butterflies of the Indian Region, Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, India.
- Referenced in the TV show Criminal Minds, Season 1, Episode 22, "The Fisher King - Part I".
External links
- Global Butterfly Information System Images of C. h. novasinensis Reissinger, 1989 Holotype